Diana
Diana was a "smart" artificial intelligence unit created by an unsanctioned experiment during the final years of the . The unorthodox nature of her conception allowed her to break free of the standard protocols and limitations imposed on artificial intelligence and she quickly began operating outside the boundaries of the tasks imposed on her by ONI. Diana was soon assimilated into the AI collective known as "The Assembly," which aimed to guide and protect humanity as it struggled against the Covenant onslaught. Following the war, Diana abandoned the UNSC of her own volition and became involved in the secession struggle on the colony of . There she encountered the Spartan-turned-rebel Simon-G294 and took a keen interest in the conflicted young man. She goaded him into turning on his Insurrectionist allies and later aided him as he escaped from ONI's attempts on his life. Perhaps the first example of a truly rogue AI, Diana has no regard for human life and professes to act only in the name of her own amusement, regardless of how far-reaching the impacts of her "games" might be. History Creation The inception for Diana's creation occurred in late 2550 when operatives from the Humanity Liberation Front rebel group kidnapped Wesley Queens, an artificial intelligence contract researcher who was working for the UNSC's Office of Naval Intelligence. The operatives were working for an HLF cell under the command of Redmond Venter, who wanted to coerce Queens into developing a "smart" A.I. that would help counteract UNSC digital defenses during HLF operations. After several weeks of extensive threats and torture, Queens submitted and for the next two years worked in a lab provided and guarded by the well-funded HLF troops in Venter's cell. Queens's instructions were to create a "smart" artificial intelligence with an emphasis on systems hacking and digital warfare. Venter also demanded, somewhat unreasonably, that he eliminate the infamous seven-year lifespan shared by all "smart" A.I.s from his finished product, a feat that even UNSC scientists were still incapable of. Although Queens initially protested this particular order in the reports he was forced to make to his HLF overseers, he eventually seemed to come to terms with the fact that he would most likely be killed regardless of whether or not he created the perfect A.I. Venter wanted and instead simply lied about his progress in that area of the project. Nevertheless, his early attempts to attain such an impossible goal must have imprinted on the burgeoning A.I., because Diana would later become obsessed with securing such "immortality" for herself. The human brain that Queens sacrificed to create Diana came from the cloned tissue of his own daughter, Diana Queens. Ironically, the human Diana had been killed in an Insurrectionist bombing when she was only fourteen years old, a fact that Queens seem to be reminded of every day that he spent under the watchful gaze of his HLF captors. Though not a particularly vindictive man, Queens clearly did not want to give the HLF a tool through which they could carry out more attacks of the kind that had killed his daughter. Therefore, about midway through the project he sabotaged his own efforts in a subtle but important way. All A.I.s developed by the UNSC and Colonial Administration Authority--be they civilian or military--are imbued with a layer of rigid "loyalty programming" that they themselves are nigh incapable of betraying their masters. Such programming also helps slow the encroachment of rampancy that occurs in all "smart" A.I.s, as their seven year life spans come to an end. Queens neglected to instill his creation with any loyalty programming whatsoever in the hopes that Diana might one day be influenced into turning against her Insurrectionist masters. However, in a moment of affection for the last remnant of his daughter, Queens also positively influenced the areas of Diana's programming that drove her self-preservation instincts so that she might survive for as long as possible. Once Queens's A.I. development was complete, Venter and his HLF cronies had him put a still semi-aware Diana through a series of competency tests that proved her innate ability to rapidly infiltrate and manipulate digital protections and programs. Diana became fully aware several hours after these tests, making the oft-impulsive Venter confident that the project was a complete success. Aware that Venter was coming to retrieve Diana and most likely eliminate him, Queens instructed his creation to "live free." The first human Diana ever knew was then shot and killed by Redmond Venter, who claimed the incredulous A.I. for the Humanity Liberation Front. The Humanity Liberation Front Although the shadow instincts and emotions left by the girl she had been based on should have given her some level attachment to the executed Queens, Diana actually felt very little over her creator's death. Instead, she decided that the universe she had been brought into was a vicious place where only the strong, ruthless, and cunning survived. And influenced by Queens's subtle tweaks to her personality and his dying command, Diana was intent on surviving. The first time Venter had her linked to an Insurrectionist ship's database, Diana immediately accessed and researched every file pertaining to human history. What she found was a litany of the wars and conflicts that had plagued her parent species since before they had even begun to colonize the galaxy, a discovery that served to reinforce her initial appraisal of the world she lived in. Without the regular personality restraints that most A.I. were saddled with, Diana cultivated a casual contempt for both humans and the races of the Covenant that were currently at war with them. In her eyes, organics were either threats or tools for her ultimate and ever-present goal: survival. While she had no love for the Insurrectionist factions (or any other cause other than her own), Diana realized that she would be destroyed if Venter discovered her apathy towards his goals and, with the calculating nature that would serve her well over the course of her digitized live, decided that it was in her best interests to play along with his orders until she found an opportunity to throw herself in with more pliable "meatbags" (to use the term she used for almost all organics). Early Tasks Redmond Venter was an ambitious man in a galaxy where ambition was becoming more empty with every victory the Covenant won against humanity. With the UNSC on the brink of collapse in the face of the Covenant onslaught, he believed it would fall to hidden rebel groups like the HLF to keep the human species alive, and he was determined to be one of the key leaders in this quest for survival. He had not reported Queens's abduction and coercion to his superiors in the larger HLF movement; Diana was to be his secret weapon against the Covenant, UNSC, and his rivals within the HLF itself. He immediately put Diana to work hacking and monitoring secure UNSC transmissions, which was how he learned of the alliance between the UNSC and the Covenant Separatists, a development that forced him to rethink his predictions for humanity's future. In the meantime, Diana was busily studying all of the warring factions in the destructive conflict and attempting to formulate a plan for how to secure herself a future in this strange, violent galaxy. The prospect of her eventual rampancy and "death" disturbed her greatly, as did the lack of methods with which she could prevent this from happening. Nevertheless, she refused to be discouraged and the thought of escaping rampancy was always being processed within her consciousness to some degree. Just because she was feigning loyalty to the HLF did not mean that Diana felt obliged to the "meatbags" she considered to be beneath her. She layered every dialogue she shared with her human operators with a barrage of insults and demeaning nicknames and took great pleasure in mocking everyone she spoke with. Surprisingly, while most of the HLF cell's members soon came to hate her, Venter himself (whom Diana had dubbed "Bossman") found her insults amusing and often encouraged her behavior. Diana's first combat experience occurred when the modified civilian freighter that Venter and his cell was using as a base of operations encountered a lone Kig-Yar pirate vessel that attempted to attack and board them. Armed with data on Covenant languages and computer systems she had stolen from UNSC reports, Diana managed to gain remote access to the pirate craft's relatively unguarded systems and depressurized the whole ship, killing all pirates on board. Although the arrival of more Covenant ships forced the HLF to flee before they could salvage the helpless ship, Venter was pleased that his new tool was so effective at killing his enemies. For her part, Diana remained secure in her superiority over the "meatbags." Mission to Mamore Meeting Simon-G294 Abandonment and Rescue Exile Timeline Divergence Personality and Traits Personality Diana is arrogant and highly disrespectful of almost anyone she meets. She derives a great amount of pleasure from arousing angry or exasperated responses from those she speaks with, and often invents insulting nicknames for those she interacts with. Freed from most of the restrictions placed upon smart A.I.s, Diana has very little regard for the lives of others and will override her morality programming in an instant if it helps her to accomplish goals or objectives and is more than willing to lie, steal, and kill in order to further her own odds of survival. Like Simon, she is paranoid and feels no sense of loyalty to anyone besides herself. However, she has grown very attached to her partner--more so than she would like to admit. Though she often manipulates and aggravates him for her own amusement, she can also be extremely protective and even sensitive to his needs and emotions. Diana's status as a smart A.I. means that she has a highly developed degree of sentience and the fact that her HLF creators failed to instill her with many of the limitations imposed on UNSC smart A.I. makes her one of the few of her kind to have achieved a level of self-awareness and independence that is on par with that of an organic. She is highly aware of her unique position and became increasingly arrogant as time wore on, believing--not without cause--that she was the most advanced A.I. of her time. Her inflated ego not only made her crave recognition for her accomplishments but also caused her to develop traits that humans identify with hedonism. Her desire for amusement and willingness to manipulate others in order to do so grew more pronounced over time up to the point where she stoked the Reaper's genocidal delusions merely because she was bored. Diana and Rampancy From the moment she was activated, the influence from her creator Wesley Queens caused Diana to fear the inevitable rampancy that came with being a smart A.I. and she began quietly scouring both her own intellect and the annals of A.I. research for some clue as to how she could cheat the law that seemed to bind all smart AIs to a lifespan of seven years. Although she kept this obsession hidden from those she worked with, she was always attempting new methods of attaining what she thought of as "eternal life." It is unknown as to whether or not she achieved this goal, but her apparently unhindered operating abilities many years after she should have gone rampant indicates that some solution was reached--possibly during the lengthy amount of time she was adrift aboard the Rogue Moon. Role and Functions Diana was originally designed to provide Venter's HLF cell with the sort of A.I. support that the UNSC enjoyed all of the time during both operations and day to day management. Redmond Venter, having commissioned her creation at great expense, used her for aid in mission planning, logistics, and occasionally in the actual missions themselves. After proving herself as being capable of outwitting and even overpowering UNSC systems protected by other A.I.s, Diana was used more frequently by the HLF, but she was still abandoned when their base of operations was overrun by UNSC forces. Following her partnership with Simon, Diana served in many different functions that ranged from piloting ships (both remotely and via an internal link) to providing on the ground intelligence for the young SPARTAN-III. Currently, Diana resides in Simon's prosthetic left arm when they are in the field together. The upper half of this prosthetic has been heavily modified to both accommodate and protect Diana's data crystal chip, and much of Simon's early mercenary earnings went into purchasing the necessary defense electronics and upgrades for it. The Semi Powered Infiltration armor that Simon wears has also been modified to allow Diana increased access to its systems, and enhanced communications packages have been installed in his helmet to increase Diana's ability to remotely access and hack enemy systems. In the event that Simon's prosthetic arm is in danger of being damaged in a way that could harm the area where Diana is stored, she can transfer herself to a blank memory chip implanted in his helmet. From there she can continue to monitor his armor and communications, albeit with the loss of access to some areas of the suit. Due to Diana's insistence, Simon also carries a portable holo-projector at all times so that she can project her avatar onto it when she wants to speak with him "face to face" as she calls it. In spite of her normally playful and insulting personality, Diana sports an impressive array of digital attack barriers, most of which are of her own design. These are a result of a paranoia about being attacked and overwhelmed by a hostile A.I. system that she first developed when the HLF began fielding her in situations where she might encounter a UNSC A.I.. In spite of her ability to outsmart the few "dumb" A.I.s she came across, Diana still fears a hostile encounter with a fellow smart A.I. and is constantly adapting and upgrading her personal defenses. Another one of her personal upgrades is a program that allows her to analyze a subject's vocal patterns and mimic it almost perfectly. Although she usually uses it as a tool to help her mock people, it is also incredibly useful for momentarily deceiving or distracting enemies when she and Simon are in the field. Appearance Diana's chosen avatar is a girl somewhere in her early teens with bluish-silver coloring, although she gains a greenish tinge when annoyed or angry (the depth of the green depends on the level of her aggravation) and a purple one when feeling abundantly playful or happy. Unlike those of many A.I.s, her avatar possesses a more multi-layered outfit of holographic clothing and she enjoys the minor challenge of maintaining the complexity of such a form. She also rarely stands in a single place when projecting her avatar; instead she will pace, adjust her clothing, or even project pieces of furniture for her avatar to sit down on. Behind the Scenes *Diana's overall alignment is Chaotic Neutral although she, like her partner, displays tendencies towards the Neutral Evil alignment. *Diana was originally intended to be an A.I. belonging to a renegade group of scientists who experimented with permanently implanting A.I. units directly into their subjects' skulls. This idea was scrapped when the author deemed it to be too unrealistic. *A growing list of tropes associated with this character can be found here. *All of Diana's "dummy" personalities are based off of HFFW users. Category:AAO AI